North and South Korean officials will meet later this month to discuss establishment of a military hotline and the first exchanges between the two nations' armed forces, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung revealed Tuesday. In a far-ranging interview, Kim predicted that North Korea will inevitably be forced to open up its isolated economy but said reunification of the two Koreas could take 20 to 30 years.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has agreed to invite Pope John Paul II to visit North Korea, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung told his Cabinet on Friday. Coming a day after the Southern leader returned from a historic summit in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the announcement kept South Koreans debating whether Kim Jong Il's new openness is a propaganda ploy to extract aid or represents a tectonic policy shift by his hermetic, hard-line regime.

Athaw may finally be setting in along the last frozen frontier of the Cold War. This week's unprecedented meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea reaffirmed the two countries' shared aspiration for national reunification, 55 years after Korea was liberated from brutal Japanese occupation but left geographically and ideologically divided. No one expects to see a unitary Korea for many years or even decades.

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung was greeted by cheering crowds and soaring balloons when he returned home Thursday bearing a major agreement with North Korea. But even before his plane landed, his countrymen were adding up the summit score.

For U.S. advocates of a robust national missile defense system, the images emanating from the historic Korean summit spell trouble. Photos and TV footage from the summit show a smiling, relaxed North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, hosting his South Korean counterpart, Kim Dae Jung. More important, they depict the reclusive Communist ruler acting in an apparently rational manner.

Unofficial translation of the agreement signed by the leaders of North Korea and South Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea: In accordance with the noble will of the entire people yearning for the peaceful reunification of the nation, President Kim Dae Jung of the Republic of [South] Korea and National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il of the Democratic People's Republic of [North] Korea held a historic meeting and summit talks in Pyongyang from June 13 to June 15, 2000.

The leaders of North and South Korea signed a landmark agreement late Wednesday pledging concrete steps toward reunifying their divided peninsula. The pact, the most sweeping document signed by the two states, redefines the hostile and suspicious relations that still persist in the bisected Korean peninsula a decade after the end of the Cold War. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung agreed to allow visits around Aug.

Using protocol and pageantry to signal an end to their historic enmity, the leaders of North and South Korea agreed Tuesday to try to satisfy the yearning of the peninsula's 68 million people for reconciliation. "June 13th will be proudly remembered in history," declared North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during a 27-minute talk with his South Korean counterpart in a guest house in Pyongyang, the North's capital. It was the first such parley in the 50 years since the Korean War began.

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung received a hero's welcome today when he landed in Pyongyang and unexpectedly found North Korean leader Kim Jong Il waiting to shake his hand at the airport. With a goose-stepping honor guard and a crowd of thousands waving plastic flowers and chanting "Kim Dae Jung!" and "10,000 Years!" the North Korean leadership honored the symbolism of the historic first meeting between leaders of the bitterly divided country.

President Kim Dae Jung's party placed a distant second in key parliamentary elections as fed-up South Koreans tossed out incumbents and tainted politicians by the score, voted for regional favorites or stayed away from the polls in record numbers, according to unofficial results today.